eSports Teams

A number of teams have now been chosen to participate in the Overwatch League. More details are provided in the article.

When the Overwatch League was first announced, it had high ambitions to turn their eSports league into a league similar in proportion and style to the NFL or the NHL. Blizzard had hoped to allow cities and popular locations across the world to host their own teams, just like in the NHL and NFL.

Some of the first teams in part of this new formula have now been announced, with some of the teams being backed by some very well-known (and wealthy) individuals.

To begin with, Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, recently purchased an Overwatch team for the Boston area.

Jeff Wilpon, the COO of the New York Mets, is looking to build a team for the New York area.

It's not just traditional sports names getting involved with the Overwatch League, either. Noah Whinston, CEO of Immortals, has confirmed that he's building a team for the Los Angeles area.

Two more eSports organizations are also getting involved. With Ben Spoont, CEO and of Misfits Gaming, covering the Miami area, and Andy Miller, founder of NRG eSports, bringing Overwatch to San Francisco.

And of course, we can't forget the international teams. Over in China, NetEase will be getting a team for Shanghai sorted, and finally, the Seoul team will be sourced by Kevin Chou, co-founder of Kabam.

Announcements for more teams are sure to roll in soon, and after that, the Overwatch League will be underway.

OpTic gaming has managed to hit their second consecutive Halo World Championship win this month after they faced up against EnVyUs in the grand finals.

OpTic has been dominating the Halo scene recently. Unfortunately, they didn't quite perform as well as they may have liked to throughout the majority of the Halo World Championship. EnVyUs, on the other hand, looked as if they had the entire championship in the bag.

Even though they had performed incredibly well during the tournament, we weren't ruling out the nV grand final win. In fact, to begin with, EnVyUs had won 12 games in a row. By the time EnVyUs had reached the finals, they had only lost a total of two games. With the two teams facing off in the finals, it looked as if EnVyUs could have easily taken the game from OpTic's grasp after the incredible performance from EnVyUs earlier in the tournament.

Things took a turn for the worst on EnVyUs's side, however. While EnVyUs scored a quick 2-0 lead in the first game, which was CTF, OpTic managed to pull it back to score themselves a first win with a 3-2 scoreline.

The next game was Slayer. It was also incredibly close, but OpTic took the win 50 kills to 44. nV took a huge lead over OpTic in game three, but OpTic pulled it back with a 100-65 scoreline in Strongholds.

With game 4 on the way, things were now looking in OpTic's favor. It was a tight race, but game 4 CTF saw OpTic pull out a 1-0 victory.

As a result, OpTic gaming are now two time Halo World champions and they happily took home the $500,000 first place prize. Team EnVyUs, on the other hand, took home $200,000 which is still something to write home about.

eSports is going to be huge in 2017. NRG eSports has just picked up a sponsorship deal that hits the six-figure mark.

The new NRG sponsor is none other than the city of Washington D.C.

D.C. Events is the convention and sports authority arm of Washington D.C. and their recent sponsorship with NRG eSports has shown the world that they're serious about putting their heart (and money) into the eSports industry.

The city of Washington D.C. has sponsored many companies in the past, but this is the first venture the capital has made within the eSports industry.

You may be wondering how this deal will benefit Washington as a city. The head of the convention and sports authority arm of D.C. hopes that this new sponsorship will help bring in more tourism and open up opportunities for hosted eSports events within local stadiums. This should help to bring in interest and sell tickets to those from all over the United States, but it reaches out to an international audience too.

"International tourists are a big component of our pool of folks that we're targeting to come to Washington and visit, they stay longer, they spend more money. We're about putting folks in hotel rooms, spending money in the city, eating in our restaurants, and ultimately, long term, all these people who come to Washington, many of them we want to actually stay here and live here. Raise a family here, send their kids to school here, for us, it's not only a short-term play on how to build up an arena that we're building and put on esports tournaments, but ultimately get people to come here, stay here and move here."

Fnatic and AS Roma are giants from the esports and soccer world, respectively, and now they have partnered up to create a brand new FIFA esports team.

Sports organizations have been stepping into the esports world a lot recently, and this recent partnership between Fnatic and AS Roma showcases that these new ventures aren't going to be slowing down anytime soon. Despite FIFA not quite reaching the global stage like CS:GO, Overwatch or League of Legends, AS Roma's passion for the world of soccer has helped Fnatic to source a team of professional FIFA players.

Aman "Aman" Seddiqi, Sam "Poacher" Carmody and Nicolo' "Insa" Mirra will now all be part of the Fnatic/AS Roma FIFA team, being lead by manager Colin Johnson. Fnatics' role will be to "manage the team and offer support for training, events and provide all esports-related logistical knowledge to nurture them," whilst AS Roma are simply looking to expand their club's reach into the esports world.

AS Roma play in the Italian league Serie A and they have been around since 1927. They are one of the most successful Italian football clubs on the planet so this new FIFA esports announcement is big news.

AS Roma team president Jim Pallotta mentioned, "With the tremendous growth of eSports and continued attention placed on games like FIFA, we've partnered with Fnatic, the world's leading eSports organization, to launch our eSports team. This joint venture will enable us to start building a strong legacy in eSports and engage our fans in exciting new ways."

Whether you're into Counter Strike or not, the latest ELEAGUE win from Astralis should make any eSports fan happy.

The story behind Astralis' win is a very big one. Despite being a top performing team, the Astralis players, who had previously played under other names, such as TSM and Dignatas, had never managed to break out of their 'semi-finals' curse.

It seemed as if every major CS:GO tournament that the Danish lads entered would see them with a loss in the semi-finals. This time, things were different. The Atlanta ELEAGUE major, which was televised on North American channel TBS, saw Astralis take the win in an incredibly close battle between them and the Polish team, Virtus Pro.

After a scary loss on the first map, Nuke, and an unsettlingly close half on the second map, a win for Astralis almost seemed out of the question. Fortunately for Astralis though, they managed to pull it back, taking the second and third maps, although not without hardship.

With over 200,000 people tuned into the TV channel, and over 1 million viewers between Twitch and GOTV, it was a milestone in eSports history.

Astralis must be happy with their results, too - the team took home $500,000 in prize winnings, and also showed their recent new sponsor, Audi, that there was a lot of potential in eSports sponsorships. This is the first time such a reputable worldwide brand that's known outside of the eSports scene has stepped in to offer a sponsorship.

The movie studio behind hits like The Hunger Games, Power Rangers, and the Expendables has announced its recent investment in esports team, The Immortals.

It seems as if we're seeing investments from all over the place when it comes to eSports, and now Lionsgate has got in on the action. Interestingly, The Immortals has already seen financial support from other popular names including Michael Milken and Steve Kaplan.

Lionsgate didn't share too many details on what their investment would involve or what they would hope to receive from their partnership, but it's clear that they see the expectation in the eSports industry to follow the footsteps of other popular sports industries, such as the NBA and NFL.

This isn't the first time Lionsgate has gotten involved with video games. In fact, they have an entirely separate wing dedicated to interactive experiences and video games.

Lionsgate President of Interactive Ventures and Games mentioned, "We're delighted to be an early mover in a market that has the potential to transform the face of sports entertainment. Our involvement in eSports creates tremendous opportunities to develop new content and utilize our suite of distribution platforms for a coveted consumer demographic with compelling engagement metrics. Collaborating with an elite group of partners, the combination of the Lionsgate and Immortals brands will be formidable."

We wonder if Lionsgate has any plans for eSports movies in the near future - with their partnership with Immortals, they certainly have the chance to get a real insider's look at how the eSports world works.

The Miami Heat sports organization has recently purchased a stake in Misfit eSports.

Whilst unknown to some, the Misfit eSports org includes teams for Smash Bros, Heroes of the Storm and League of Legends. Perhaps their best-known players form their Overwatch team, which has recently performed incredibly well on a global level.

Most individuals would certainly know Miami Heat on the other hand - with a valuation of over $1.3 billion, the sports company is most known for their basketball team. In January 2016 the Miami Heat team was considered the 10th largest NBA franchise.

Considering the huge scale of Miami Heat, it's clear to see that the Misfits eSports organization are going to get all of the funding and support they need to keep their teams progressing towards new levels. Currently, the ownership of Misfit eSports resides with the original owners, but with Miami Heat owning a stake, they have the ability to call some of the shots as far as sponsorship deals, promotions, and team management goes.

We've seen this kind of eSports interest from huge traditional sports franchises in recent history, but this may be the first time such a large organization puts effort into making some of the more important calls relating to the eSports world.

With eSports growing considerably in recent years and with increasing support from traditional sports communities, it's clear to see that eSports could become the next biggest worldwide spectator sport.

Suddenly the trophy at the Overwatch NGE Winter Premiere is up for grabs, as both Cloud9 and Fnatic have dropped out of the event completely.

It's been confirmed on the official NGE event team list that Fnatic and Cloud9 will no longer be taking part. FaZe Clan and Citizen7 will take their place.

Whilst both FaZe Clan and Citizen7 have both shared their great news, surprisingly neither Fnatic nor Cloud9 have made any mention about their quiet drop out. Fnatic's insane performances in 2016 allowed them to get a direct invite to the tournament and Cloud9 were following closely behind.

Dropping out of an event this big is rare, but it does happen, usually when scheduling issues are involved. For example, official news on the OGN Apex Season 2 event is rumored to be hitting soon, and if the drop out from Fnatic and Cloud 9 is anything to go by, both teams may have chosen to attend the OGN event instead.

We think this is a great thing for the Overwatch scene - not only will the battle to the grand finals at Overwatch NGE Winter be even closer, but the OGN Apex Season 2 event is expected to be even bigger and potentially include a bigger prize pool than the previous season, so it's certainly going to attract top talent from around the world.

What event are you looking forward to the most? OGN Apex Season 2 or the NGE Winter Premiere?

While it may not be a permanent goodbye, seeing LDLC saying their farewells to a game that helped make their name famous is slightly unsettling.

LDLC have always been one of the organizations at the top of Call of Duty, but after their struggles to get hold of a good enough team, it seems like LDLC may be putting their feet up for a while.

Almost a year ago, LDLC picked up Team Spartan, and while their year wasn't completely terrible, the mixed results that the team achieved just didn't quite hit the expectations the LDLC organization had for the newer players.

To begin with, the LDLC team managed to take a win at the South Lan Event. As a result, they bagged themselves a spot at ESWC COD in Paris. The team managed to just scrape by in ESWC to get a spot in Call of Duty XP in LA.

Unfortunately though, Activision has pulled their funding for the LDLC team, and because of a lack of big prize wins and sponsorship deals in 2016, LDLC has had to pull the rug underneath their roster.

Hopefully we'll see more developments from the LDLC organization in the future, but for the time being we won't be seeing LDLC at any future Call of Duty events.

How do you feel about this news? Seeing a big organization like LDLC fail to hold on to enough sponsors to support their players in 2016 certainly isn't a good sign for the Call of Duty competitive scene in 2017. Only time will tell how things will go over the next year.

The next big COD event to look out for is without a doubt going to be MLG Atlanta. To make the event even more enticing, MLG senior director Adam Apicella has recently announced that the event will include a massive $200,000 prize pool.

MLG Atlanta is exactly the kind of event the COD scene needs to help it grow. The event will feature over 176 teams from NA, EU & APAC - any team that wants to have the chance to participate in the event will need to register up for GameBattles Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, CWL Ladders & Online Tournaments - by winning tournaments teams will have the opportunity to win CWL pro points. Win enough, and your team will get themselves a ticket to the big event.

While some teams will receive invitations to the event, others may have to pay their way into the competition. Currently, team passes are going for $299.99 and will allow access to four players and 1 coach. If you're more interested in attending the event to watch the games, you can also purchase a General Admission Pass, which will grant you 3-day access to the event, or alternatively a VIP pass for $149.99.

The VIP pass includes three-day entry, a VIP Hoodie, VIP Seating, VIP Lounge Access and earlier access to the venue.

As for scheduling, the event starts on February 10 - check-in starts at 8:00 AM EDT and doors open at 11:00 AM for VIPs and players. For general admissions, doors will open at 12:00 PM.